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Rapid early-middle Miocene exhumation of the Kazdağ Massif (western Anatolia)

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Abstract

Apatite fission-track analyses indicate that the Kazdağ Massif in northwestern Anatolia was exhumed above the apatite partial annealing zone between 20 and 10 Ma (i.e. early-middle Miocene), with a cluster of ages at 17–14 Ma. The structural analysis of low-angle shear zones, high-angle normal faults and strike-slip faults, as well as stratigraphic analysis of upper-plate sedimentary successions and previous radiometric ages, point to a two-stage structural evolution of the massif. The first stage -encompassing much of the rapid thermal evolution of the massif- comprised late Oligocene-early Miocene low-angle detachment faulting and the associated development of small supradetachment grabens filled with a mixture of epiclastic, volcaniclastic and volcanic rocks (Küçükkuyu Fm.). The second stage (Plio-Quaternary) has been dominated by (i) strike-slip faulting related to the westward propagation of the North Anatolian fault system and (ii) normal faulting associated with present-day extension. This later stage affected the distribution of fission-track ages but did not have a component of vertical (normal) movement large enough to exhume a new partial annealing zone. The thermochronological data presented here support the notion that Neogene extensional tectonism in the northern Aegean region has been episodic, with accelerated pulses in the early-middle Miocene and Plio-Quaternary.

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Acknowledgments

L. Beccaletto and G. Stampfli are thanked for fruitful discussions. Reviews by F. Lisker and D. Papanikolaou greatly improved the manuscript. This research was sponsored by MIUR (Italian Dept. of Public Education, University and Research) and in part by the Turkish Academy of Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Geoenvironmental Sciences, University of Bologna, 40126, Bologna, Italy

    W. Cavazza & M. Zattin

  2. Eurasia Institute of Earth Sciences, Istanbul Technical University, 34469, Istanbul, Maslak, Turkey

    A. I. Okay

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  1. W. Cavazza
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Correspondence to W. Cavazza.

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Cavazza, W., Okay, A.I. & Zattin, M. Rapid early-middle Miocene exhumation of the Kazdağ Massif (western Anatolia). Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 98, 1935–1947 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-008-0353-9

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